Global production networks and the extractive sector: governing resource-based development

This article explores the opportunities a GPN approach provides for understanding the network configurations and regional development impacts associated with extractive industries. The article elaborates two core claims: (i) that the application of the GPN analytical framework provides a way to make progress in a stalled policy debate regarding the linkages between resource extraction and socio-economic development (popularly known as the 'resource curse thesis'); and (ii) that the encounter between GPN and a natural resource-based sector introduces distinctive issues-associated with the materiality and territoriality of extractive commodities-that, to date, GPN has not considered fully. The article examines the global production network for oil as an empirical case of how extractive industries can provide (limited) opportunities for socio-economic development.